RULON AIMS TO MAKE ANOTHER OLYMPIC SPLASH

After skipping ’08 Games, water polo star back for U.S.

Kelly Rulon was a sophomore at UCLA when she went to the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens on the U.S. women’s water polo team. She was 19. She won a bronze medal.

The USDHS (now Cathedral High) alum continued to play water polo, winning three more national titles at UCLA and becoming the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer with 237 goals, followed by three pro seasons in Italy. But she didn’t play on the national team, didn’t try to add to her Olympic jewelry collection.

She wasn’t injured. Wasn’t cut. Wasn’t too old. Wasn’t playing professionally for the money (“We’re talking water polo here,” she said.) Wasn’t a casualty of a coaching regime change.

Just didn’t want to do it. She watched the 2008 Summer Games on TV from her parents’ home in San Diego.

“I had played in an Olympics,” said Rulon, now 27. “I had done what my life goal was. I had accomplished it. I went to the Olympics and was satisfied with it. I wanted to experience something else. People who know me and understand me know that I don’t always make typical decisions. I’m not one to follow what everyone thinks should be done all the time.

“You have to be strong-willed and strong in character and content with you who you are as a person, and I feel like I am. I have no regrets.”

She’s also back.

Rulon is part of the 13-woman U.S. Olympic team that plays Hungary tonight at 6 at UCSD’s Canyonview Pool as part of its send-off series before London. The Americans won the first two games 17-8 and 14-8.

There are several reasons Rulon decided to return to the endless practice days and truncated social life of the Olympic water polo player, one of which is that she still has a passion for the game. The other is Adam Krikorian, her coach at UCLA who took over the national team in 2009.

“If I’m going to give you six hours of every day, if I’m going to sweat, if I’m going to be in tears sometimes, then it better be fun,” Rulon said. “Adam makes it fun. He makes working hard fun. We’re going three hours in the morning and three hours at night, Monday though Friday, and four hours on Saturday. If you’re working out that much, you have to make it fun. It’s impossible to survive if it’s not.

“Adam understands that.”

Krikorian also understands Rulon, and it is why before accepting the job with USA Water Polo he called her several times in Italy.

“We have a good connection,” Krikorian said. “The years we shared together at UCLA were good years and I think were enjoyable for both of us. I think it was an easy decision for her because of that. She wanted to replicate those positive experiences.

“I respect someone who has a mind of their own and can think for themselves. She clearly didn’t think (the 2008 Olympics) was the right thing for her at that time. … But it’s past us now, and to be honest we haven’t talked a whole lot about that.”